I have recently come under management of a 1972 Islander 40 MS with the slightly dubious, yet strangely fitting name "Leviathan". She is in generaly good shape for a boat her age, posably partly due to the fact that she's spent much of the last few years out of the water. She has endured at least two previous owners who were unsucsessfull in thier intentions to refloat her but i think I've got the best chance yet. I fell in love with this boat when I first saw her 4 years ago and could not pass up the chance to finally see her in the water and under her own power.

My intentions for outfitting and restoration are 'minimalistic' at best. I have a new masthead light (multi color) and bilge pumps but other than that i don't want anything else running on the batteries. She's never going to be a blue water cruiser again... at least not under my command. I just want her comfortable for some easy weekends to local aria islands... maybe a jaunt to Bikini at most. So I'm keeping the electronics as simple as posible and making everything that I can manual and or independantly battery powered (with solar or manual recharging).

The work required to get her under way is pretty streight forward and i have most of the materials required (thanks to previous owner) I'm comfortable with most everything that needs to be done but there are some points i'm not clear about. Most specificaly the standing and running rigging plan. The masts are unstepped and all the rigging and hardware has been removed... but it's been like that for a while now and noone's really sure how it all goes back together. I've inherited an oversized jigsaw puzzle but it didn't come with the picture on the box, if ye follow me. If someone could point me at some really good pictures of the standing rigging on an Islander 40 MS (specificaly the masthead configuration) I'm confident i could figure it out. I've never owned a ketch rigged boat before.

Actualy.. the rigging is all I'm tripping about at the moment. Everything else seems prety streight forward to me. May not end up how it was origionaly but I can get it sorted. I actualy just finished re-installing the steering cable last weekend.

Next weekend: Trimming and plumming the engine room. It's a HUGE engine room... by ratio, the boat I work on at work has a tiny, cramped engine room compaired to Leviathan's

The top layout is of the Charles Davies designed 40 MS first built in 72
The bottom diagrams are of the Doug Peterson designed P40 introduced in 79

I am the proud owner of the 1979 P40 hull number 5

I can provide whatever pictures anyone wants for the dual spreader sloop rigging of the P40, but I do not know how applicable that would be for the dual masted single spreader MS 40 Ketch that Riverdog is asking about.

I seriously simplified the P40 rigging when I got her and refitted her a couple of years ago. The original P40 was set up for ocean racing top sides [copied I think from Peterson's earlier NY 40 work for america's cup training] but used a stretched I36 cabin design inside. My P40 is incredibly similar now to the C&C 37/40 which I realized after I refitted and we sat at the dock next to a C&C - the hulls look identical side by side.

sailingkiko,
I've been looking at an Islander 40 MS to buy but I can't seem to find much information on them. How is it? Any blister issues? What kind of information would you wish you knew when you first got her? Thanks!

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